


"I Wanna Get Better"

by GraphiteWrites



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: "I Wanna Get Better" lyrics, Angst, Bleachers, MCU comic mix, Memories, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Songfic, dwelling on the the past, hot showers, my headcanons are behind this, steve rogers honorable mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2079300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraphiteWrites/pseuds/GraphiteWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky wakes up from a nightmare and dwells on his past, as he is wont to do. In the end, he's reminded of what he keeps working for.<br/>Songfic; lyrics are "I Wanna Get Better" by Bleachers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"I Wanna Get Better"

**Author's Note:**

> I've had something like this in my head since TWS came out. Now, every time I hear this song, all I can imagine is Bucky standing at his bedroom window with coffee and Nat wrapped around him, pensively watching the sunrise. So I thought I would finally write it all out.
> 
> I'm sorry I seem to have a thing for angsty Bucky. I really, really do.

_Hey I hear the voice_   
_Of the preacher from the back room_   
_Calling my name and_   
_I follow just to find you_

He woke up in a cold sweat and breathing hard. He took care to sit up slow enough so as not to wake the sleeping figure beside him. Blindly, his right hand reached over and back to find the swell of Nat’s hip under the comforter and he closed his eyes in relief. She was still there. Still real.

His dream had been vivid and felt all too natural to his mind. She’d been taken from him and he failed to save her this time, failed to be there the one time she _actually_ needed him. He had heard her screams down a long hallway that stretched endlessly and the gunshot that silenced them.

He knew that he could lay there in the dark, not being able to fall asleep for fear of hearing her voice hoarse with his name, but that didn’t sound too appealing. His chest heaved with a sigh as he tossed the covers from his legs and swung them over the side of the bed. Maybe a shower would help shake the chills from him and he’d be able to get back to sleep before the sun came up.

He made sure to close the door so that the sounds of the water didn’t wake her up; she was dog tired after a rough assignment and he wanted to make sure she actually rested for once. The last thing she needed to worry about was him. He slipped out of his sleep pants, folding them and laying them on the bathroom counter, and stepped under the hard stream of water. He closed his eyes and turned up the heat as he dwelled on his past, much like he did. It was a terrible habit he just didn’t know how to break.

The entirety of his history flashed across the back of his eyelids as he scrubbed his scalp. Being a kid growing up with Steve, always looking out for Steve, joining the army like a good ol’ boy. Then Hyrda came crashing into his life and there was super-soldier Rogers larger than life and he could hardly believe it. He’d traded a weak heart for fast metabolism and huge muscles. Now he would be living in Steve’s shadow, it seemed. Then the fall and all he could think about was the cold and the excruciating pain in his left arm. He flexed his metal fist a few times; open, closed, open, closed.

_And I've trained myself_   
_To give up on the past_   
_Cause I froze in time_   
_Between hearses and caskets_

He felt himself shiver because all he could feel was cold; Russian winters, being put on ice for extended periods. His hand reached out blindly to turn up the hot water. There were sparring and training sessions in the KGB. There was target practice and upgrades to his new appendage. He became so skilled he taught and trained operatives. He was given the Black Widow program and that was where he met Nat. She trained so well, so beautifully, and he was secretly so proud of her: his best student. Big holes were in his memory from being frozen; at least there was nothing to really remember. There was a lot of blood and a lot of killing. It was the moments sprinkled in between—the first time he loved her—that gave him any kind of reprieve. She had always been his saving grace, apparently.

_Because the love_   
_The love, the love_   
_The love, the love_   
_The love, that I gave_   
_Wasted on a nice face_

_In a blaze of fear_   
_I put a helmet on a helmet_   
_Counting seconds through a night_   
_And got carried away_

Even all that was taken from him. She was gone, and he was just shoved back into cryo until they needed to unpack their best weapon. In and out he was taken, each time he started to show an inkling of emotion that might hinder his work, they strapped him down and wiped his memory clean, scrubbing it like a dirty plate. Then they would immerse him in training, reconditioning him and shaping him for whatever job they had. Years went by, he knew, and he never had anything else.

Odessa came along and he almost got away feeling nothing. He knew her, but he didn’t. He knew his mark, knew his mission. He had done what he went there to do, but the moment he questioned that mark’s cover the doctors shared a glance. Just like that, everything was black. Black and cold. He turned up the heat again; the water quickly becoming too hot for the average person even though he seemed to barely feel it.

DC happened a few years later; he had had miscellaneous kills between then. Busy Work, he liked to call it. It was nothing that ever really challenged him much or put his special skills to a lot of use. Mostly, it was HYDRA keeping their favorite toy lubricated; pulling the gun out of the safe to fire off a few rounds and make sure everything still worked the way it was supposed to.

DC started so dark for him, so controlled. Fury was the first step out of the box, really. Seeing Steve on the rooftop that night had done nothing for him, but he knew he wanted out of this bargain he had never signed on for. He may not have known who he had been, but he knew who he was then and didn’t like it; he was done playing fetch for ungrateful assholes. He was tired of doing the dirty work and heavy lifting only to get shoved into an ice box as a thank you. All that started to change during the big firefight on the freeway. He had been half-focused on getting done and getting out. He didn’t care anymore. That’s how she had gotten a shot off. That’s how he had seen her. That’s how his edges had started to fray.

He saw that red hair, those green eyes and pale skin. He saw the strength and confidence in her stance and the power behind her gun. He noticed the pure skill she had and knew it well. It was the way she fought and moved that was so familiar to him; it was so like his own style. Just like that, he mentally switched targets to her. _She was his._

_So now I'm standing on the overpass_   
_Screaming at the cars, hey_   
_I wanna get better_

Everything after that followed in such quick succession. Before he knew it, he was on the run with pieces of his mind trying to fall into place. It was confusing and painful. Then he was being found by the very people he had been sent after. These people that, somehow, knew him and he remembered through a frost-covered haze, faded by time and a broken mind. He had killed plenty in the time he’d been gone, going after HYDRA himself and trying to tear them apart as violently as they did his life. He would have been fine dying on that train, but they just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Now it was coming back to bite them in the ass.

Seeing Steve again had brought back so much, and now that everyone was being brought back together, he had bits to connect his pieces. He was falling back into himself and rediscovering “Bucky.” He was realizing what it was he had lost and it devastated him. Then Nat came back.

He found out she had been purposefully keeping her distance without telling anyone why. They all just assumed she was still staying off-grid, despite the Avengers rebuilding everything together. But when she came back, _she came back._ Missing holes in his time at the Red Room, the blurry face of a person he had spent so much time with, all came rushing back.

_I didn't know I was lonely_   
_Til I saw your face_   
_I wanna get better_   
_Better, better, better_   
_I wanna get better_

Her blank stare said nothing to everyone else, but miles to him. He focused and he saw that she had quit breathing and her eyes were wet. He remembered sparring with her, teaching her English (while she helped him work on his accent), teaching her… _other_ things. Her long, waved hair was gone; cut short to her shoulders with just a little bit of curl at the end. She looked older, like she had seen some of the same things he had. Maybe she had seen plenty of the things he had done. But she was still Natalia. His heart fell to the floor and he felt like he had all those years ago, rediscovering those butterflies and strange emotions.

_I didn't know I was broken_   
_Til I wanted to change_   
_I wanna get better_   
_Better, better, better_   
_I wanna get better_

She walked right up to him, then, dropped her bag at his feet and just stared up at him, her green eyes scanning his face intently. He watched her swallow hard before…

“I… I didn’t… I mean, I wasn’t sure, I—“ Her hand reached up to touch his face and his eyes closed, his metal hand coming up to cover hers. She took a deep breath, then, before picking up her things and walking to her rooms in the tower. He didn’t see her for a week after that.

In the shower, he opened his eyes, realizing his left hand was pressed to his cheek. He felt himself smile a little; that was the start of his good memories. Finally, he started to feel a little of the heat from the water, but he didn’t bother turning it down. He resumed washing his hair, scrubbing his scalp clean and remembering to “get behind your ears, James” just like his mother used to say. Some habits really do die hard.

He was so absolutely happy with the progress that had been made over the last year. He was mostly the man Steve remembered him to be, and all of the man he wanted to forget. Natasha was still making him realize that his past did not define him, as hers didn’t define her. It had to be about what they did moving forward. And, Lord, was she his driving force. He loved Steve, he really did. That man was his brother and someone he had loved for a long time. Natasha, though, she was his anchor. With all of the bad in his past, she was the one good thing about any of it.

Their first interactions were so awkward and terrible after that first meeting. No one else really knew the extent of their past and so couldn’t figure it out. With all of her secrets out, they now knew that Nat had trained under him when she was younger, but that was it. Steve finally asked them one night while they were all up with shared insomnia, the blond sitting between them on the couch, each with a coffee cup in hand.

“So did you two… ya know…?” He was met with silence and raised eyebrows. They weren’t getting it. “Were you dance partners?”

“I was a dancer once,” Nat said quietly after clearing her throat. “But James wasn’t… part of that assignment.”

Steve sighed and closed his eyes, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “That’s not what I meant.” He looked straight at Bucky. “Did you two… _fondue?_ ”

James nearly choked on his coffee laughing before giving Nat a knowing look. She immediately buried her face behind her mug.

“You could say that,” he finally answered. “But it was… complicated.”

Nat said something about finally being tired enough to stare at her ceiling and disappeared back into her rooms.

Time flew after that. They inched closer to each other, emotionally, allowing for those feelings to blossom after over a decade of death. There were times, chasing her, that he felt truly young again and like his past didn’t matter so much. Eventually, though, a mission would come along and he would be reminded of what he was.

_I go up to my room_   
_And there's girls on the ceiling_   
_Cut out their pictures_   
_And I chase that feeling_

_Of an eighteen year old_   
_Who didn't know_   
_What loss was_   
_Now I'm a stranger_

He turned the water off, realizing he was wasting more than he was using, and toweled off. He swiped his right hand across the mirror, streaking the glass and turning the fog into messy water drops. For a moment, he just stared at himself. There were dark circles under his eyes, his hair growing shaggy again, almost long enough to pull back into a bun. He needed to shave and he saw the scars that littered his chest. His gaze lingered on that one ugly scar, that thick seam along his shoulder. Sometimes he managed to dwell on all the things he tried to forget. He still had such a long way to go.

_And I miss the days_   
_Of a life still permanent_   
_Mourn the years_   
_Before I got carried away_

_So now I'm staring at the interstate_   
_Screaming at myself, hey_   
_I wanna get better_

Vaguely, he smelled coffee through the door and knew she was up. He took a deep breath and pulled his flannel pants back on, absently tying the drawstring tight across his hips. Of course he was silent as he padded through the bedroom and paused in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up one wall of their shared room. There were times where he still couldn’t believe where he was and what was going on around him. This kind of slight dissociation often contributed to his foul moods and pushed him deeper inside himself.

_Cause I'm sleeping in the back of a taxi_   
_I'm screaming from my bedroom window_   
_Even if it's gonna kill me_

A small, comparatively cool arm snuck around his waist from behind while the other came around to hand him a steaming mug of fresh, strong coffee. He took it distractedly, slowly unfolding his arms from around himself.

“Your skin is hot; it’s still red,” she murmured, resting her cheek against his fleshy shoulder.

He said nothing, almost as if he simply didn’t hear her; those blue eyes focused on something far away in some other time.

“Hey,” she said more sternly, pressing the length of her body along his side and bringing a hand to his cheek, turning it away from the window towards her. She watched him blink slowly at her and come back to the present. “Quit doing this to yourself. You aren’t cold. These scalding showers do nothing but make you hot to touch.”

He suddenly smirked at her. “But I thought you liked me hot,” he said as he took a drink of coffee.

She looked unamused as she slapped his cheek playfully and they both returned to looking out the window, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist and her chin perched on his shoulder.

“Really, though,” she spoke lowly. “It gets easier. You won’t do this so much, after a while.”

_Woke up this morning_   
_Early before my family_   
_From this dream_   
_Where she was trying to show me_

_How a life_   
_Can move from the darkness_   
_She said to get better_

He heaved a deep breath and his cool metal arm moved over hers, and she threaded their fingers together as she placed an open kiss at the nape of his damp neck. He took another deep drink of coffee, closing his eyes and smiling when he realized she was wearing nothing but her tank top and panties.

“You won’t be so dark, anymore,” she murmured against his ear, her lips brushing the shell.

She was an anchor for him, and if anyone ever took her away, so help them, they better start praying.

_So I put a bullet_   
_Where I should have put a helmet_   
_And I crash my car_   
_Cause I wanna get carried away_

_That's why I'm standing on the overpass  
Screaming at myself, hey_

“I wanna get better,” he said to her quietly. There was a lost tone to his voice and it hurt her to hear it.

He felt the ceramic of the mug leave his fingers to be replaced in just a moment by hers, his live nerve endings allowing him to bask in the sensation a little. He opened his eyes back up to see her looking right at him, the morning’s sunrise turning her hair into a veritable fire and he suddenly remembered part of what was so important. Her. His Soviet Angel, Natalia Alianovna Romanova.

She didn’t smile; she had no words of reassurance. She was living proof of the progress he wanted to make. And she leaned up and kissed him so softly and with so much love, he felt the ice around his heart crack and flake off.

_He would get better._


End file.
